Thursday, 31 July 2014

It's monthly favourites time and a lot of what I've been loving lately is stuff I picked up when I was in New York.

Maybelline 24hr Colour Tattoo in Barely Branded

I've been wearing this everyday with or without eyeshadow on top. As it's neutral it's a perfect base for eyeshadow and it's really long lasting.

Wet N Wild Walking on Eggshells Trio

I now totally get why this is such a hyped up eyeshadow trio. It's perfect - perfect pigmentation and perfect for everyday, easy wear. I've been wearing all 3 shades on my lids as it says on the palette with some winged liner and mascara and it's such a lovely everyday look.

Maybelline Colour Whisper in Rose of Attraction

This is a product that needs to make its way over to the UK and stat! The formula is so creamy and moisturising that my lips feel nourished when I wear this. This colour is also an amazing everyday shade that goes with anything!

Milani Baked Blush in Luminoso

I hate to say it but this is another 'perfect everyday product'. It gives the skin such a healthy glow that you can't help but want to wear it everyday.

MUA Bronzer in Shade 3

Finally, a UK available product for you! I've had this bronzer for a while and decided recently to get it back out and try it again, and I'm glad I did. This is such a great contour colour for me and it's matte. I highly recommend this product and even if you don't like it, you've only lost £1! I've been applying this with my next favourite.

Sephora Bro Contour Brush

This is the most perfect contour brush I own. I'm always on a mission to find an amazing contour brush to help things be just that little bit easier when doing contour as I don't have prominent cheekbones at all! This size of this brush fits perfectly into the hollows of my cheek and blends out powder beautifully. If you're in America or even planning on making a Sephora purchase online, I can't recommend this brush enough!! It's kicked all my other contour brushes to the side.

Sunday, 27 July 2014

This is the final instalment to my New York hauls and it's all the random pieces I bought...a lot of food.

Bath and Body Works

It was 5 Hand Sanitizers for $5 and I did get 5, but I gave my sisters one each.

I ended up Pomegranate Peony, Vanilla Berry Sorbet and Peach Pecan Cupcake and they all smell delicious. However, I do think Peach Pecan Cupcake is my favourite.

I did originally want to get one big Bath & Body Works candle but I wasn't sure if I'd have the weight in my case (turns out I did :( but oh well) so instead I got 3 minis for $12.

The scent I was most excited to smell was Mahogany Teakwood as everyone raves about how much it smells like Abercrombie, and let me tell you...it smells SO good, which is why I ended up picking up 2! I also picked up Sundrenched Vineyard which is gorgeous.

It says on the jar that this smells of mahogany, cedarwood and oak - highlighted by delicate lavender and geranium notes.

This says it smells of rich fruit, white wine grapes and French oak.

The Mets

As everyone walked into the Mets stadium, it was free cereal bowl day so as you can guess we all got a free bowl!

To match everyone else in their gear, my friend and I also picked up stuff from the gift shop. I ended up with this t-shirt which I wore through the game. I'd also definitely wear it around at home as it looks like something you could pick up from New Look trying to be a sports top.

Food

You can't go to America and not come back with junk food!

I picked the Twizzlers up from the Hershey's store in Times Square and it was only $3.80 for this massive bag!!

On the way back to the hotel we went to get a cereal bar to keep us going until dinner. I picked the Kind Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate bar and fell in love with it. I brought 3 home but have already eaten 2. When I go to California in August, I'm definitely buying more to bring back.

I saw these on my last morning and couldn't leave without them. As you can see from the packaging they are already opened, but what you can't see is that there's only 3 left! They smell absolutely incredible and taste just as good as they smell.

On the 4th July we picked up dinner to take and eat at the fireworks and I picked a bag of these crisps as I couldn't decide what I wanted so went for a selection.

In writing these crisps seem like the strangest combination all together, but let me tell you this is the best bag of crisps I've ever eaten, so I had to bring some back with me.

Wednesday, 23 July 2014

Welcome to part 2 of my New York Hauls and this one, as you can tell from the title is all my clothing/accessory purchases.

One thing I forgot to mention in my beauty haul was that I am in no way bragging by my purchases. This holiday was booked in September and I didn't go until July which meant I had 10 months to save up as well as all the money from my 21st birthday.

I saved a lot in order to completely spoil myself whilst I was away.

Anyway back to the goodies:

Forever 21

I was very refined in Forever 21 considering the size of the Times Square store. I had picked up lots of things to try on from the first two floors not realising the store kept going down!! It was absolutely massive, I was in there for almost 2 hours!

Flower Cami

I love the zipped detailing on this skirt

Cute studs for everyday wear

A knotted infinity bangle

Necessary Clothing

I had heard of this shop in Soho through youtubers such as Beautybaby44 and BeyondBeautyStar so I made a mental note to pay a visit. Once again, the shop was enormous and once again, I was very refined as it wasn't as cheap as I thought it was going to be.

I loved the detailing on the Hamsa

A plain chiffon tee to be paired with accessories

Brandy Melville

I was expected more from this shop to be honest, but I don't know whether it was the store in general or that it was so busy and the queue was so long it took the fun out of shopping there.

I live in tops like this through days at uni

Infinity Midi Ring

Old Navy

We walked past Old Navy in Soho and there was massive signs for 4th of July Weekend deals so we had a look in.

Again, this is another jumper for lounging around in through uni.

Aeropostale

I made a visit to the Times Square store to see if they had Bethany Mota's clothing line to see what it was like (they didn't) but I ended up making purchases anyway as they had some great deals on

I love this style of crop tops with high waisted skirts.

I realised as I was writing this post that I also got a pair of jean jeggings from this shop as they were on sale for $30 instead of $50 but I forgot to photograph them.

American Eagle Outfitters

This top was on offer for $15 from $25

I wanted a pair of very relaxed black shorts and these were once again on a great offer (which I can't remember sorry!)

Loft

Everyone in Times Sqaure was walking around with bags from this shop so I went to have a look. The fashion wasn't really my thing but these bangles were buy one get one free. I got a black and gold one.

Macys

This was where I knew I was going to make my biggest purchase of the holiday.

For my 21st, my sisters bought me a $50 Macy's voucher as one of them had been in New York a few weeks before my birthday.

I then put aside the birthday money from my Grandparents in order to finally treat myself to a Michael Kors watch.

Of course, as I was a tourist I also got a 10% discount so after the conversion rate I got this watch half price!

It's the Michael Kors Mini Bradshaw watch in Tortoise Shell and Rose Gold. I couldn't be any more in love with it if I tried!

Bloomingdales

My next big purchase was dependant on if I had money left over on the last day and I did!

Sunday, 20 July 2014

The past week I've posted everyday about my holiday in New York and I mentioned countless times about shopping (of course).

As I bought way too much stuff to put all together in one haul, I'm separating it into 3; a beauty haul, a fashion haul and a random haul.

I'm starting with the beauty haul as I wanted to take those pictures first so I could use all the products!

I did my beauty shopping in a few different places so I'm separating it into shops.

Sephora

I was very excited to finally go into a Sephora and I went in armed with a wishlist. As I don't need to buy any more make up than I own, I was super refrained and only bought what was on my list! However, new items have been added onto my list for when I'm back in America in August.

The first thing I picked up were the Sephora ribbon hair ties as they look super cute and don't give you kinks which is needed when I've straightened my hair.

Next on my list was to finally try a Tarte Amazonian Clay 12-hour blush as they are raved about. I didn't have a particular colour in mind so I went with True Love which is a gorgeous pink-peach colour.

Next up is the Nars Eyeshadow Duo in Cordura which I've wanted for months (I spoke about it in my Blame it on the Beauty Bloggers #1) so I'm super happy to finally have it.

A rollerball perfume was also on my wishlist, again with no particular scent in particular. After sniffing almost everyone I settled on the Elizabeth and James Nirvana. A lot of people have been raving about both the White and Black version of this perfume, but I really didn't like the Black one. However, the White one is really nice, very sophisticated and like no other perfume I own. The notes on the box say Muget, Peony and Musk.

After Amelia Liana has recently been raving about Sephora brushes in general, I wanted to try one. I ended up with 74 Pro Contour Brush. I've used it a few times already and I absolutely love it!! I definitely want to pick up some more brushes.

Finally, I picked up a Formula X Nail Polish in the colour Dramatic which is a milky purple grey. I'm very excited to try out this formula as once again, it's raved about.

CVS

To my happiness (my money's despair) there was a CVS right opposite our hotel which ended up with me buying a lot of junk food, and of course some make up.

I already own a NYX Butter Gloss but I love it so much I wanted another one and it's cheaper to get it in America. I picked up the colour Peach Cobbler.

Another lip product I really wanted to try was the Maybelline Colour Whispers as they still haven't found their way to the UK yet. It's more or less a Revlon Lip Butter but Maybelline's version. I got the colour Rose of Attraction.

I also got a Revlon Colourstay Moisture Stain in Barcelona Nights as it looked lovely when Fleur de Force has been wearing it recently. I know they are going on sale in the UK in August but again, it's cheaper to buy them in the States.

Finally from CVS, I picked up the Milani Baked Blush in Luminoso as so many American Youtubers rave about it. It opens up into two compartments with the bottom one being a mirror and brush which is handy! I can't wait to give it a go.

Duane Reade

The CVS over the road from our hotel, didn't have a massive selection of brands and wasn't fully stocked either so I had to make a stop at a different drugstore to get the missing drugstore items from my list.

Firstly I picked up the Wet N Wild eyeshadow palette in Walking on Eggshells which is quite iconic. The pigmentation is amazing!

Next I picked up the Maybelline 24hr Colour Tattoo in Barely Branded which isn't available in this country. I absolutely love my colour tattoo in On and On Bronze so I wanted to try a more neutral colour to go under eyeshadows and this one is perfect.

My final eyeshadow purchase was the L'Oreal Infallible EyeShadow in Amber Rush as that colour, once again isn't available in the UK. The pigmentation is amazing and it's such a gorgeous colour.

Finally, I picked up an Essie Nail Polish in Angora Cardi as Ingrid from Miss Glamorazzi once mentioned it and it looked beautiful so it's been on my wishlist ever since. I've only ever seen it to buy online in the UK but I wanted to see it in person before I bought it. When I saw it on the shelves, it went in my basket straight away.

MAC

I went into the MAC store for the sole purpose of finding one particular lipstick. Whilst I was in New York I saw someone tweet that MAC lipsticks have gone up to £15.50 in the UK, so whilst I was able to get the colour on my wishlist cheaper, I took the chance to do so.

After causing a massive commotion within the MAC staff in the middle of the very busy Times Square MAC shop, I finally walked away with Patisserie which was a purchase purely down to the enabling of Vivianna Does Make Up and Lily Pebbles.

Bath and Body Works

I did a much bigger shop there than what is being hauled in this beauty post which you can see soon.

For beauty related items, after being in the shop for about 45 minutes just smelling everything I settled with the 3 for $12 mini deal on lotions/sprays.

As soon as I went into the store I fell in love with the Velvet Sugar scent so I got it in the body lotion and spray.